A different way of telling a story

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Some movies earn their reputation on 'Shock-Value' alone. After reading other reviews it seems there is a fairly broad range of tastes and cultural sophistication among the reviewers that range from sadistically deranged to seemingly emotionally balanced.I vaguely remember this movie when it was released. I was 12 and I don't recall anyone talking about it. So I suppose it was box-office flop. Outside of its shocking violence the movie is about as uninspiring, cheesy, clumsy and repugnant as one could find. Honestly, the production values are as cut-rate as one would find in an average porn film. The Exterminator shamelessly rips off the Vigilante tale, undoubtedly, from Death Wish, a better movie. But it doesn't even have the quality acting, believable script or production values of Death Wish. It is simply a moronic tale of an urban nobody who avenges the death of his friend. Then inexplicably, without any noticeable character development, emotional range or dramatic arc, the lead actor, Robert Ginty, goes on a maniacal rampage to become a homicidal maniac who exceeds the carnage of the thugs he chooses to target. There are several torture scenes that are not only implausible in nature and nuance, but seem to just grade against the monotone plot. There are a series of slow plot developments that occur only through coincidence that are punctuated by brutal torture and offings. A couple of the acts committed by the protagonist are so hideous that they are actually more heinous than any deed committed by the thugs or creeps depicted in the film. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, because the movie is not sophisticated enough to distinguish due justice or a senseless rampage. The only hope for this movie's theme is if we engage in the idea that violence begets violence and its bloody consequences. But the film doesn't even achieve that level of social consciousness. And therefore is nothing more than gratuitous and cinematic crud. It just plays out like a messy series of sketches that illustrate some Right-wing fantasy of ridding criminals. I guess this film was hoping to bank on the American public's cry for justice during a time when America was plagued with urban blight during the Carter administration and its ineffective and lenient judicial system.Typically, the movie is also a timepiece of its own era (Late 70's and early 80's) with laughably bad hairstyles. The acting is pretty bad in parts. Christopher George, as the lead detective, is too incompetent and lethargic as a worthy nemesis to the vigilante villain. Robert Ginty is strangely bland and he's an odd choice for an anti-hero. He just seems very unfit and unconvincing in this kind of role. The thugs, perpetrators, pedophiles and mobsters in the milieu are about as menacing as an elementary school faculty. Characters are so hopelessly unbelievable in acting and presence that I'm certain they were paid very low salaries. This production also has a considerable amount of one-time actors where this was their only big-screen gig. After watching this abominable piece of celluloid it comes to no surprise. The problems with this movie are so abundant that to bother mentioning all of them would take too much space. The opening and closing ballad is also execrable.

This is a vigilante film about New York, part of a trend that was started by Death Wish in 1974. Basically the plot concerns a warehouse worker in New York who served in Vietnam named John Eastland whose best friend and fellow Vietnam veteran is paralysed by a gang of thugs when he disturbs them breaking into a warehouse. Swearing revenge, Eastland wipes out the gang members that paralysed his friend, then decides to take on a gangster who is extorting money from the warehouse( he is killed horrifically by being dropped into a meat mincer) and a child abuse gang that involves a senator and then wiping out a group of violent muggers who are part of the same gang that paralysed Eastland's best friend. While a bit cheaply made and unsettling in places, The Exterminator shows what a dirty, dangerous place New York was 35 years ago. Unlike now, where Times Square is a lively and safe pedestrianised square, in 1980 it was full of pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers and one scene shows Eastland in a squalid hotel used by prostitutes asking a prostitute who has been tortured by the child abuse gang for more information. Also Eastland's neighbourhood is full of semi derelict and dangerous tenement blocks that are often rat infested, the rats coming in useful when Eastland ties two members of the Ghetto Ghouls gang up and lets the rats attack them.Unlike now, and something the film alludes to constantly, NYC is adirty and crime ridden city and run by a corrupt and aloof city government which believes The Exterminator, as Eastland now styles himself, is a plot by their political opponents to bring them down. In the final part of a film, the mayor and the CIA decide to try and wipe out The Exterminator, but he manages to escape being shot and swims away to freedom from an abandoned ship where he has arranged a rendezvous with the detective that is investigating him.I quite like The Exterminator, even if many critics savaged it for being too violent, and think it was very much of its time when New York was a frightening place to live and the police and city government were ineffective and corrupt.

John Eastland (Robert Ginty) sets out to avenge the death of a buddy at the hands of a gang of street thugs.If you can't tell by rating, I'll spell it out - I'm not much of a fan of The Exterminator. Let me start by saying that I don't have anything against low-budget or violent films. If you look through some of the other reviews I've written you'll see plenty of glowing comments for movies with lower budgets than this one. You'll also see that I've got a lot of positive things to say about a number of very violent films. But it doesn't work here. The problems:1. No plot - I gave the movie a one sentence plot summary at the start of this, and that's probably more than The Exterminator deserves. Instead of a coherent plot, it's one of those movies with a series of set-pieces randomly thrown together. There's no flow to the film and definitely no logic. Things happen more for shock value than to move the story along.2. Acting - I realize this is a personal preference, but I'm not a fan of Robert Ginty's style of acting. I know he has fans, but to me, he's just doesn't fit the part he's asked to play here. He doesn't look like a killer - he looks more like a car salesman. One small example is the scene where he's prepping bullets. Look at his hands. Those aren't the hands of a killer. Those hands haven't done the things John Easland has done. He's the wrong guy for the part.3. The love story - I was really annoyed by the love story subplot with Christopher George and Samantha Eggar. I didn't necessarily have a problem with them as actors, but their screen time together was stomach churning. A midnight picnic in Central Park, love- making in a empty hospital room - ridiculous.I really wanted to like this movie. As I said, low-budget violence is okay with me. But I had way too many problems to rate this higher than a 3/10.

"The Exterminator" is an Action-movie, directed by James Glickenhaus, 1980.Basic plot: John Eastland (Robert Ginty) and Michael Jefferson (Steve James) are two friends who are coming home to New York from the gruesome Vietnam war. Sadly, a few years later, the dark colored Michael gets brutally attacked by a ruthless gang of thugs, and gets paralyzed for the rest of his life. When Eastland gets to hear about this, he sets out to kill many of the thugs, and later on every criminals he meets. On the other side, detective Dalton (Christopher George) is assigned to the case, and will do anything to stop "the exterminator".This film is very brutal, even for a action-flick that deals with vengeance. Whenever scenes of violence occur on screen, they mostly end with a grim result. Some of the notable scenes that must be mentioned here include the realistic beheading scene during the opening Vietnam war, and the scene in which Eastland sends a man into a meat grinder.I really love how Eastland quotes his catchphrase "if you're lying, I'll be back", while threatening a tied up thug with a flamethrower. For some reasons, I also find Mr. George's appearance as the detective to be great.Not only did this film suffer various censorship while being released around the world, this film was banned from being shown in Norwegian cinemas. It was later released on VHS by the now defunct NOVIO A/S, only to become the very first video movie to get banned in 1984 in relation to the heated topic being "video violence". Since early 2000s, this film is now completely legal in it's uncut version, hence the fact I have a Norwegian DVD copy containing this version.Do you like action-movies that deal with vengeance, this film is truly a must-see. Actually, I don't hesitate to call this film one of the greatest "vengeance movies" I've seen in several decades, and therefore I give this film an overall rating of 10/10. A similar movie to be highly recommended is the 1974-movie "Death Wish" with Charles Bronson.The other three movies from James Glickenhaus I've seen include "The Soldier" (1982), "Blue Jean Cop" (1988) and "McBain" (1991).